I was a tech person long before an amateur radio operator. So when I finally got licensed in 2019, the two hobbies didn’t so much collide as pick up where the other left off. Like many hams, I spend a lot of time figuring out how to make radios, computers, and gear talk to each other.
Most of my operating has been outdoors. I activated all 50 U.S. states in Parks on the Air (POTA). My attention however turned recently to Summits on the Air (SOTA) after I moved to Southern California, a place crowded with summits . After packing a few backpacks with my trusty Yaesu FT-891, I quickly realized that it was time to ditch the heavy gear and go as light as possible. The idea of walking up with a small QRP radio and a CW key is what pulled me in.
A key doesn’t help much if you can’t use it, so I enrolled in CW Academy. I’m in my second “semester” now, and that class is the real reason this site exists. My classmates and I had so many practical questions: How do I get my CW sidetones into Zoom? How can I use my key with the online training sites like Morse Code World, LCWO or the VBand site? How do I upload a custom file to my Morserino 32 Pocket? I started writing the answers to these and many other questions down for my future reference and in some cases have shared them with my classmates.
The tutorials for classmates are still here. The mission just got bigger. If there’s a way to connect a radio, antenna, CW key, or other shack hardware and software to the rest of my world — such as a Stream Deck, a Node-RED flow, Home Assistant dashboard, a PC or Mac script, or an AI tool that actually saves time — I’m game to try. I’m not an expert. I’m someone with a soldering iron, a PC, and a stubborn interest in making the two work together. The write-ups (and perhaps some upcoming videos) are the notes from that process: projects, wrong turns, and guides meant for operators who are comfortable with hardware but new to automation — and the other way around.
If you’ve got a better way to do any of this, please say so. Comments and ideas are welcome.
Cheers!
73 Tim N6WAX